


I need your grace (to remind me to find my own)

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Free!
Genre: Friendship, Love, M/M, Pool Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:24:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a moment Haru thought he had everything. In the next moment he had nothing. And the moment after that...</p><p>(A love story, freestyle.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I need your grace (to remind me to find my own)

**Author's Note:**

> Shipper wars are a bummer. But ~~The Dude~~ the fandom abides.   
>  Set post-Season 1. The title is borrowed from Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." And the text of the story is, in large part, borrowed from [one I originally wrote in another fandom](http://archiveofourown.org/works/253528) (orz).

Makoto closes his eyes when he comes this time, like he does when it's good. His head lolls to the side, lips parted, hands riding Haru's hips as Haru keeps fucking him like there's no tomorrow. Someday Haru will bend to kiss those lips when he comes, drawing out the breath and taking it for his very own, but he only looks this time, like he always does, loving Makoto's breathing in a way he has never been able to say in words.

Yeah, someday Haru will take Makoto's breath away when he comes, but for now he only looks, and closes his own eyes when he spills himself into Makoto.

When Makoto is ready, his hands falling from Haru, Haru shifts out of him and sits up. They're quiet, the way they usually are when it's been this good.

Then Makoto says, "You can go now."

The edges of Haru's mouth curve, sensing what must be a joke he doesn't get yet. "What?"

"You can go now," Makoto says again. "To Rin."

Haru wants to laugh and tell Makoto that if he wanted to be with Rin tonight—

But Makoto is talking again: "Thanks for telling me about you and him," he says, but he doesn't sound thankful. He doesn't sound anything, his voice flatlining as he goes on, "And thanks for the goodbye pity fuck."

The words ring so loudly in Haru's head that he almost misses Makoto say, softer, emotion leaking into the fissures in his voice, "That was the best it's ever been."

In the time it takes Haru to try to decide between telling Makoto he's right, it was pretty great, but he bets they can do even better; and telling Makoto he's wrong, there was no pity and no goodbye in how they just fucked, and Haru doesn't understand why Makoto would think there was—as Haru is trying to figure out what to say, Makoto rolls onto his side, his back to Haru.

"Can you please just go?" Makoto's voice cracks a little higher on each word. "I want to stay friends with you, but I don't think I can be around you for a little while. I just—I just want you to go." When Haru doesn't move, Makoto says, "Please, Haru—if you ever—if you're my friend, just go, okay?"

Haru knows Makoto is crying now. It sometimes turns him on when Makoto cries, because he gets to be the one to make the tears stop. He doesn't feel turned on right now, but he still wants to be the one. He knows Makoto isn't crying to make him feel that way; that's just how it is. 

When Haru reaches for Makoto, Makoto jerks away at his touch, then actually gets off the bed and stands at the window. He won't look at Haru, even when Haru says his name. "Please," Makoto says, "just go."

So Haru does.

He doesn't go to Rin's, though. He walks around, trying to think. He thought when Makoto told him he should hook up with Rin that Makoto was saying he was okay with Haru hooking up with both of them. He doesn't think that anymore.

Haru gives up on thinking, just walks around for a while, and finally goes home because there's nowhere else to go.

 

"Did you talk to him?" Rin says, turning in the doorway instead of opening the door when they get to his room. "Did you tell him about me—about us?" His arms are folded across his chest but, even though he doesn't have the brightness or softness that's come back to him since the relay, he's not all hard edged like before.

Haru's breath rises and falls. Makoto would have known it was a sigh, probably...although after last night, Haru has come to think Makoto doesn't see everything, not _everything_...

Anyhow Rin is not Makoto and he doesn't read Haru's mind, doesn't read his breath. He stands in the doorway, looking at Haru, his mouth a carefully straight line.

"Yeah, I told him."

Rin studies his face, his fingers unfolding like they want to latch onto Haru's jacket but only folding back in again. "And he's okay with it? We can be together?" Rin hadn't believed that Makoto was okay with Haru seeing both of them, let alone that it had been Makoto's idea, and had insisted that Haru make sure one more time before anything happened.

"We can be together," Haru says, because that's the only thing to say about it. 

Rin's mouth yields to the curve of sweetness he's been suppressing as he opens the door behind him. He slides his arms around Haru's waist, bringing Haru with him as he backs in, presenting himself to be kissed and molested the way Haru told Rin he wants to yesterday, and promised to show him then; and does show him now.

 

Makoto and Haru may not be walking to school together these days but they stlll see each other in class and at swim practice, and it's not like they don't talk at all. Although it's true that whenever Makoto isn't actually in the pool at practice these days, he's over with Kou. 

When Nagisa turns up at his house one day and says he's going shopping for a new swimsuit, it's not like Haru doesn't see through the not very subtle plan to get him out of the house. He still goes along, of course.

At first when they run into Kou at the sporting goods store, Haru thinks that's part of the plan too. But she and Nagisa seem genuinely surprised to see each other and start talking about nothing suspicious—or interesting, for that matter—and no one else shows up.

"Hey," Haru says to Kou in the lull of small talk he hasn't been able to pay attention to, "are you and Makoto together now?"

"I don't think you get to ask questions about him," she says. They eye each other, neither flinching, and he wonders just how much she knows, how much Makoto has told her. 

"So!" Nagisa says brightly. Kou turns to look at him but Haru keeps looking at her. "Are you and Makoto together now?"

"No," she says, her eyes sliding to meet Haru's ever so briefly before going back to Nagisa. "We're just friends." Although she's wrapped the ends of her hair around her finger, there's no coyness in her words, no euphemism-indicating quotation marks around "just friends." Since she answered Nagisa and not him, Haru can only guess that Makoto asked her not to talk about him to Haru, which makes him feel better and worse at the same time. 

Haru leaves Nagisa and Kou to their flirting and walks to the train station. He's not in the mood to show identification and sign in, so he goes around to Rin's window instead and climbs in without explanation when Rin opens it for him, licking the questions off Rin's tongue and swallowing them unanswered, letting himself be kissed the way only Rin kisses, on the verge of out of control; this time Haru doesn't try to control him, and he gives up his own control too, and they tip past the verge, tumbling over the edge. And when Rin lets Haru fuck him for the first time at last, and then for the second time—which feels like the first all over again because Rin is so gloriously tight, shaking so hard and needful—Haru wonders why he ever thought control was a good thing.

 

Makoto doesn't place in the 100m back at the next tournament but he finishes second in the 200, which isn't good enough to advance but is the best he's done all season and gets everyone fired up. Even Rin comes over to congratulate him, the wideness of his grin faltering when Makoto steps back as Rin starts to open his arms. He shakes the hand Makoto holds out instead and Makoto doesn't flinch when Rin claps him on the back before leaving, and probably no one outside the Iwatobi Swim Club noticed anything.

Well, and Rin, of course. Haru doesn't know why he tried to hug Makoto like that, whether he was just carried away with excitement over Makoto's race or if he misread the situation between them. Haru thinks, from Rin's expression during the handshake, that it's the latter and that probably Makoto told Kou not to talk about him to her brother either. He decides not to bring any of it up when he goes over to see Rin later that evening.

They've been making out in Rin's room for hours, half naked, wrapped as much in the haze of arousal as in each other, when Haru props up on his elbow to admire the pretty little bruise he's been working on over Rin's jugular. He leans in to lick it—and finds himself stopped by Rin's hand on his chest.

"Did you break up with Makoto?"

Haru leans back. "No."

"So you're going to see him after you leave here, like always?"

As Haru sits up, he takes a moment to wonder how it is that he has, apparently, fallen for the two slowest kids on the western coast of Japan. He had no idea Rin thought this is what's been going on. "I haven't been going over to Makoto's."

"But you said you didn't break up with him..." Rin sits up now, too.

"I didn't," Haru says. "He's the one who called it quits with me."

"Oh."

They look at each other.

Lips parted, Haru tilts his head, leaning forward into his own invitation. And falls over backwards as Rin meets him the rest of the way, and more, in another kiss.

When they part this time Rin props up, running his fingers through his hair to hold it back as he gazes down at Haru. "We have to break up."

 

Haru gets suspended for a week after he gets caught breaking into the pool at school. It doesn't make sense; he's broken into lots of pools before and, even when they got caught, they never got in trouble like this—

Oh. Right. Because before _they_ did it and now it's just Haru, and Makoto was always the one who did the talking whenever they got into trouble...

He decides to stop thinking about it, which feels like the best decision he's made in months.

 

Three days into the suspension, when he can't fall asleep, Haru goes to the old swim club. It's not hard to break into the Iwatobi Swim Club if you know how, which Makoto—who has been doing it since grade school—does. He's not here this time but Haru has been with him every single time and so this time he stops and thinks about which lights Makoto would turn on so they could see enough not to break their necks falling into the pool without lighting up the windows and attracting unwanted attention.

Slipping into the water is better than a homecoming, or maybe it's like a homecoming for someone who really likes their home. Haru starts counting his strokes automatically, then stops tracking strokes and laps and just swims; swims and swims and swims, breathing and stroking through the water like this is all that matters...

He takes a deep breath when he comes to the end of the lane and goes under the water until his breath runs out.

 

A couple of neighborhood strays start coming by every afternoon. Haru sits outside with them even after he feeds them, watching as they curl around each other to sun themselves. 

 

It's Sunday before Haru returns to the pool at the old swim club, the night before his suspension is up and he has to go back to school. He's been there maybe half an hour when he comes up from his turn and sees a pair of bare feet at the opposite end of the pool. 

He swallows hard as he pulls up at the end of the lane. "What are you doing here?"

Makoto shrugs and kind of smiles as he sits down. Haru hoists himself out of the pool to sit next to him. Their hands rest close to each other on the edge but don't touch.

"I did everything wrong," Haru says, watching the water ripple. "I'm stupid. I thought—I thought you were telling me to ask Rin out."

"I was," Makoto says. 

Their eyes meet when Haru looks over. "Then you're stupid," he says.

"Yeah." Makoto tries smiling again. "I know I am."

Haru wants to tell Makoto he didn't mean it. Makoto isn't stupid. Or he's the kind of stupid that good people are, not stupid the way Haru is. He wants to tell Makoto that he loves him, which he's never said with words and always assumed Makoto knew, but everything is messed up and maybe Makoto didn't know, doesn't know now...

"I lo—"

"Don't say it," Makoto says. He looks away. "But I do too, you know."

Haru swallows hard. He does know. His fingers inch toward Makoto's but still don't quite touch. "I won't try to get him back. I never should have started with him."

"Yeah, you should have," Makoto says. Haru looks up from their hands and finds Makoto looking at him again. "You two are meant to be."

Haru shakes his head, but he feels his bones embracing Makoto's words. 

Fuck his bones. "It's not worth losing you."

"You haven't lost me." Makoto looks away as he slides over so their shoulders bump, though their hands are still apart. "You'll never lose me, Haru. I'm just sometimes going to be stupid, but you should know that by now." He doesn't look back but he does smile as he says, "And I hope you know you'd have to do something way worse than falling in love for me not to be your friend on a permanent basis."

Falling in love—is he in love with Rin? Fuck, when did that happen? Was he in love with Rin even before they kissed for the first time? How is that even possible? Haru doesn't know...but it must be possible, because it kind of is true. At least his bones think so.

"Hey." He waits for Makoto to look at him. "I really want to kiss you right now."

"Goodbye pity kiss?" Makoto half-grins.

Haru shakes his head and puts his mouth on Makoto's before either of them can say anything else, licking at Makoto's tongue the way Makoto taught him all those years ago, letting Makoto lick at him.

Their foreheads rest together when the kiss breaks. "Do you think," Makoto starts. He stops to draw an audible breath. "Do you think I could have that goodbye fuck now?"

As if Haru could deny Makoto anything at this moment. "Not goodbye," he says. "But yes."

He slips into the water, drawing Makoto down with him. He holds onto the edge as Makoto enters him, and he doesn't have to look to know that Makoto's eyes are closed when he comes inside Haru this time. 

Haru supports both of them as Makoto rests, draped against his back. When Makoto slips, softening, out of him and reaches for the wall, Haru turns him around so they're facing each other, takes Makoto that way. They fuck until Makoto is hard again, so quiet like always, except for the intensity of his breathing. Haru lets go of his hip and reaches for him, to feel that breath like he's always wanted to. He presses his thumb into the hollow of Makoto's throat, then folds it and brings it up under Makoto's chin. He presses again, lightly, just hard enough for Makoto's eyes to widen in understanding.

"Please," Makoto says softly.

So Haru does it, presses harder, hard enough to take Makoto's breath away, literally and just for a second or two, just long enough for Haru to own Makoto's breath the way he's always, always wanted to.

Makoto's lashes flutter as his eyes open when he comes to, flutter shut again as he comes. They're damp by the time Haru comes, and he wants to cry, too, but he only kisses the tears on Makoto's lashes, licks them from his skin.

They don't talk as they climb out of the water, back into the world. They don't talk as they leave the swim club, as they walk through the streets of Iwatobi until they get to the intersection where Haru's house is one way and Makoto's is the other.

"See you tomorrow," Makoto says.

"Yeah," Haru says.

Makoto smiles, his biggest one of the evening, before he heads off.

Haru watches him go, knowing Makoto won't look back, knowing he'll see Makoto tomorrow and everything will be the same as it ever was between them, and completely and irrevocably different at the same time. But he will see Makoto tomorrow, and the day after that, and the one after that, too, which is as far into the future as Haru cares to think. And he smiles, too.


End file.
